Was FCAT headline a joke?

"State: Don't need to write that good."

Education reporter Tia Mitchell was among those puzzled, amused or annoyed by the headline that appeared over her Sunday story about state officials abandoning a requirement that high school sophomores pass a writing test to graduate.

Gary Becka, who described himself as "amused and baffled," asked if the headline writer passed high school English.

"We are not amused," said Rhoda London, who said she assumed the grammatically incorrect headline was intended to be a joke. Others took time to point out that the adjective "good" should have been replaced with the adverb "well."

When Mitchell began to get complaints, she inquired whether the headline's grammatical error was intentional.

"Part of me thinks we were trying to poke fun, but (readers) might not be in on the joke," she said.

Each night after the final edition is completed, an editor files an overnight memo recapping the vagaries of producing the paper, such as why a later-breaking story was used or problems encountered with some planned story or graphic. Senior chief copy editor Steve Cotter filed the memo at 12:26 Sunday morning.

"Yes, the 'write good' headline was intentional," Cotter wrote.

The newspaper's top editor, Frank Denton, responded to Cotter and said he got the "write good" headline and liked it.

Cotter responded that an ordinary headline had been rewritten to use "can't write well," but Mike Marino, the news editor, had suggested changing it to "write good."

One editor suggested, in retrospect, that misunderstanding could have been avoided if something like "... or well" had been added to the headline. Not necessary, others said.

"I don't think we give readers enough credit for being in on the joke," said Assistant Managing Editor Denise M. Reagan. "In this case, the intentional grammatical error was not done to be 'cute' but to really hit home the point of the story.

"The headline stops you and makes you think, which is exactly what it should do," she said. "I think the headline added to the story's conversation-starter status."

Indeed, and in a clever way.

Where are torture stories?

Several readers complained about our failure to provide a story when President Bush revealed that he had been aware that top administration officials had vetted harsh interrogation techniques used on detainees.

"Why isn't the Times-Union carrying this as a front-page story?" Steven Orr asked. Clayton Adams, a former staff sergeant in the Marines, had more to say.

"I'm writing to express my total dismay that the Times-Union has failed, along with televised news organizations like CNN and FOX, to prominently report that Bush, (Vice President Dick) Cheney, (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice, (and others) not only lied about America torturing prisoners held in Guantanamo ... but actually choreographed the torture sessions from the Oval Office," Adams wrote.

Earlier this month, details emerged that top administration officials from Cheney on down signed off on harsh interrogation techniques. But those officials took care to insulate the president from a series of meetings at which they discussed and approved interrogation methods, including waterboarding. This paper devoted a one-paragraph brief on April 11.

When ABC News revealed that Bush acknowledged he knew of the meetings and had approved of the result, that produced substantial attention and commentary in many newspapers. But that wasn't reported in the Times-Union's news columns.

Now, since the Times-Union's front page usually emphasizes local news, which is the case at more and more larger newspapers, it is understandable that the recent torture-related stories wouldn't be front-page news.

But critics are right to suggest the stories deserved more attention. The lack of coverage in this case is symptomatic of a too-frequent shortcoming in identifying national and world news for effective presentation.

The appointment of veteran editor Carole Fader to the new position of national/foreign editor should portend marked improvement.

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